I both find it interesting and not surprising that video games have followed suit with other gendered activities such as sports.  It is not surprising that since the early wave of video games often mimicked actual sports, that the same expectations surrounding sports would transfer over to video games.  Before understanding the question of what “casual” games are and who they are associated with, I feel we first need to look at society as a whole.  When it comes to sports, men’s professional sports are unfortunately more popular than female sports are. Anything that has to do with sports would generally be advertised to men.  Another example of this would be guns.  Usually guns and warfare are geared and advertised toward men.  It is not surprising that first person shooter games are considered more hardcore and geared more towards men. I feel that if we want to address this gender gap when it comes to video games, then we have to address the gender gap within society overall.  Within “Chess for Girls? Feminism and Computer Games” by Justine Cassell and Henry Jenkins, it says “Hurtig and Pichevin conclude that sex is only a variable when gender is at issue—that is, only when socially constructed categories are evoked having to do with what we expect of men and women” (6). I agree that most things aren’t inherently gendered, but society places these expectations on gender and categorizes activities around those expectations. Society expects women to not have time for video games, thus “casual” games are made to be played in small intervals without much dedication needed. I don’t see the need to stamp a gender on these kinds of games.  I know plenty of women who prefer to not play games labeled as “casual” or “girly”. I also know plenty of men who enjoy playing games that are considered to be more “girly”.

I think that labels such as “casual” and “hardcore” should be less about the actual game and instead refer to the attitude a player has toward a particular game.  I feel that any “causal” game and be considered hardcore if a person were to dedicate themselves enough to it and take it really seriously.  I also feel that any “hardcore” game can be considered causal to a person who doesn’t take it seriously and just plays it every so often. There are many people who take the game Destiny 2 to be a very “hardcore” game because it takes a lot of dedication and knowledge about the game to be good in it.  However, I don’t dedicate hundreds of hours on the game in order to have the best gear or weapons.  When I play, I just jump into crucible and play with whatever weapons I have at whatever light level I am, and it doesn’t bother me.  I have a more casual attitude about a game that people label as “hardcore”. I know people who play Candy Crush every day and have dedicated so much time and energy into it even though it is considered to be “causal”.  I feel like these labels discourage people to play games outside of what is expected of them or advertised to them. Moving forward I think we should all take a step back from labeling games as “casual” or “hardcore” or “girly”, and instead treat all kinds of games equally just as those who play them.

Works Cited

Cassell, Justine, and Henry Jenkins. From Barbie to Mortal Kombat: Gender and Computer Games. MIT Press, 2000.